I’ve been on a years-long quest for the DAW that best matches my mental model of how a studio works, and I think that Cubase is finally the winner. The built-in channel strips sound excellent enough that common workflow tweaks (HPF, compression, saturation) won’t need any 3rd party plugins, and the mixer UI makes it easy. The performance, even under Rosetta, is excellent.
but
The inability to meter input on a channel without monitoring the input is a deal-breaker. If that one thing gets fixed, I’ll crossgrade to Pro on that day. I can’t throw away my UAD interface just to get an ASIO direct-monitoring interface. Is this feature on the roadmap? If not, I’m just about cynical enough to believe that it’s a way of driving hardware sales.
The channel meter does nothing unless I engage the monitoring toggle. From what I’ve read in the manual, in order to get input metering without monitoring engaged, you must enable “ASIO direct monitoring”, which is not a thing on macOS, or at least is not available with my UAD apollo interface. I do not want to turn monitoring on when recording vocals, because I already monitor the vocals via the interface’s internal routing. I would be delighted to be proven wrong.
In the Mix Console you can see any Input channels that you have defined in “Audio Connections” (F4).
The following will set the display filter so that you will only see the Input channels…
You can now look at the level on that input.
It is not quite the same as monitoring an audio channel as any effects, panning or volume changes of that channel won’t be shown but maybe it is good enough for what you need to see.
Sine it’s Pheinberg´s first post maybe he is switching from Logic Pro. In Logic you can still see the input level on a record-armed channel even when input monitoring/softwaremonitoring is turned off without the need of a dedicated input channel visible. It also took me sometime to get used to when switching to Nuendo last summer. On a 13" laptop, recording 12 drum tracks is still a little cumbersome when you need to to watch your levels on another 12 separate input channles. No problem in the studio with a second monitor, but on location…
I’ve used Logic Pro, Reaper, and Studio One, all to a degree of comfort where I could get work done efficiently. In those DAWs, input metering happens independently of monitoring.
Having said that, the MixConsole does indeed meter input! It’s a little awkward, when tracking drums, to have to choose between seeing your input levels and watching the tracks get laid down in the event lanes, but at least there’s a workaround. Still, it is odd that the project zone doesn’t show metering unless you’re monitoring…
If i understand you correctly then you can have the lower zone open with the mixing consule which will show you your input meters and the project page at the same time
Depends also on how big/resolution of your screen. I have the arrangement window and mixer window showing or as above use the lower zone. You don’t have to choose between seeing the arrangement window and mixer.
Ohh yeah since i came to cubase 3 years ago I’ve been begging for a a feature that every other daw has and again no response because remember Cubase loves doing great things until customers ask if they do is not happening just to not be complacent with their customers its crazy
But who wants to have the lower mix window open when you are recording a whole of channels live at the same time ??? It seems like cubase thinks everyone is recording samples and making beats instead of actually recording real live music
What has making beats and samples got to do with having the lower zone open ? If that’s a real problem then you should buy an extra monitor and have the input mixer on a different screen but you wll end up with the same amount of channels depending on the size of your monitor , plus the lower zone will show ALL your inputs that you have connected so i don’t see where you are coming from there , it’s quite simple to 'zoom to full project ’ with the lower zone open
there is a “clunky workaround” if not suggested yet.
set the metering to input, enable monitoring , and mute the channel.
maybe link multiple channels or make a VCA to control all channel muteד at ones, or just Q-link them
EDIT: maybe create a key-command with macro, to enable/disable together monitor + mute
Edit 2: and there is 40% off on cubase now )))
if you want to go wild also add to that macro record enable )))
i actually i tried the macro, works really well as a workaround for your situation
the problem is that you need always to select those tracks to execute the macro .
link the tracks or moving them to a folder can ease the need to select them all the time when you need to toggle from recording to listening playback
